Democrat Bail Reform

Every weeks it seems democrats have some new plan to solve all our problems. This week it's bail reform. They say requiring bail is racist and bigoted. They are telling us that more blacks are in jail than whites because they can't pay the smallest bail. For this reason they want to do away with the bail system all together. So far, I have heard no clear plan for a replacement, just elimination.

Imagine this scenario. A mass murderer is arrested. Instead of placing him in a police car, he is handed something similar to a speeding ticket that tells him to call a number to find out when he can appear before a judge. He is then released back into the public while he awaits trial.

I did lay out the most extreme case, but I saw nothing on nationalbailout.org that said anything to the contrary. Even if they wanted to eliminate bail for non-violent offenders, they would still leave a lot of dangerous people walking the streets. You might say innocent until proven guilty, but police spend a lot of time and money to find alleged criminals. This is why we have bail hearings to decide who should be detained and who can be released.

Personal Debt

Americans have accumulated $4 trillion dollars of personal debt. This much debt is a dangerous trend. There is no evidence that personal debt will decrease. Student loan debt, alone, is $1.5 trillion dollars. This debt is akin to home mortgages because they often require lifetime payments. Credit card debt is more than a trillion dollars. This is maybe the worst debt of them all.

We have to look at each type of debt independently. Housing and college debt are, at least, an investment in the future. A home can often be sold for more than its purchase price. Student debt often leads to higher incomes in he future. This doesn't mean either are always good choices. If you buy a house larger than you can truly afford, odds are good that you will, someday, face foreclosure. If you borrow $100,000 for a women's study degree, chances are you will end up working in fast food. No matter the type of debt, we must make wise choices.

My mom grew up poor and she was terrified of any type of debt. She passed that fear onto me, but I still fell into the debt trap. I got into the habit of buying on credit at the local mom and pop store. This was common in the area. They didn't charge any interest. When you got paid, you go there to cash your check and they clear your your tab. Stores did this because it was a way to gain more customers.

The Digital Town Square

Is social media truly the new town square? There have been a lot of conservative and ideologically right voices being banned from Facebook and Twitter. Some on the ideological right say these are private businesses and have a right to ban whomever they please.

I've personally been torn between thoughts. My first reaction is that we don't want government interfering in private businesses. We all know that government is constantly regulating businesses, but those of us for a free market work to fight against regulations.

There is one possible way to fight against people being banned, and that's through civil suits. There was recently a mass banning of right-wing people and groups from Facebook in the name of clearing the site of hate groups. Labeling a group or person as hate can have financial and social harm. I believe we will see some lawsuits against Facebook and Twitter for this labeling. Civil suits can protect the rich, but the average person can't afford to sue a large corporation.

Democratic Party Coup

Democrats have been talking seriously about abolishing the Electoral College. They are upset that Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election, despite winning the popular vote. Her lead in the popular vote could have been attributed to the people of Los Angeles, alone. If the US was a democracy instead of a constitutional republic, a handful of cities could decide the presidency.

In America, the founders intended for each state to be a self governing country. The federal government was created to form a common defense, and so that states could trade freely across borders. States joining together under a republic had many benefits, yet still allowed each state to govern independently. A person living in New York City can't begin to understand what life is like in rural South Carolina. Each Eastern state or region has an economy that's different from one on the West coast. The Electoral College insures the people of Iowa have equal power to those in New York City.

Democratic Socialism Failures

What's the difference between regular socialism and Democratic Socialism? There is none, because socialism usually ends in a tyranny, American socialists believe they can bring in more people if they say their form will be better because people will be allowed to vote for their leaders. Simply put, it's just an illusion because Democratic Socialists want to have total control.

Socialism seems to be the topic of interest for democrats. I doubt most of the people bashing capitalism and praising socialism even know what it is. What most socialists talk about is free college and medical care. Those are social programs, but not socialism. Socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization, which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

The important part of this is their use of “community.” Leftists make it sound as if community is you and your neighbors making decisions. Technically, that is correct, but in truth, you would elect people to make those decisions. We call those people government. If you listen to Democratic Socialists, they are always talking about expanding federal power. Many might find socialism acceptable if it was done on a local level, but people in Washington, DC know absolutely nothing about your community.

Gentrification And Economic Change

We have heard a lot about how a few New York residents fought off Amazon from building a new headquarters in the city. There were a lot of arguments as to why they thought the new headquarters was a bad deal for the city. There was one aspect I thought was bad—The city was going to give Amazon $300 million in grants. No city should give away money and assets to lure corporations to the area, even if it would mean huge economical gains for the area. The only exception might be if citizens voted for the assistance, such as when they have referendum votes to build sports stadiums.

Amazon was promised $3 billion in tax breaks. It seems impossible to explain to leftists that a tax break is letting someone keep their money, not giving them money. I wrote in Reasoning Behind Eliminating Business Taxes how a business doesn't pay any taxes, because they pass those costs on to the consumer. For this reason a tax break shouldn't matter. For some reason, democrats seem to believe the city will lose $3 billion if Amazon comes.

Disastrous Green New Deal

Democrats, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have presented the Green New Deal that is a combination of climate and social justice legislation. We are being told this new legislation (H.Res.109 - Recognizing the duty of the Federal Government to create a Green New Deal), which gives no specifics, is necessary if we are to save the world from global warming. Democrats are telling us that if we don't take drastic measures, the world as we know it will come to an end in 12 years.

No matter your stand on climate change, you have to see this as a fear tactic. I've written about Climate Hypocrisy, but his is more about the social justice aspect and how this plan is economically impossible. I've seen estimates that the Green New Deal could cost anywhere between $84-$100 trillion dollars. There is only an estimated $77 trillion in the entire world. This means, if you confiscated all the money in the world, you would come up short. You might ask what their alternative payment method might be—printing money has been proposed. Any economist will tell you that printing this much money would destroy the US economy,